1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for providing an interface with an application to which speech can be input, the system recognizing the meaning of an input instruction to the application with speech of a user and notifying the application of the meaning.
2. Description of the Related Art
The high performance of computer systems and the development of multimedia processing techniques in recent years have allowed the advent of a highly developed human-machine interface, and thus have paved the road to the development of an interactive application with human beings.
An application employing a conventional speech recognition technique roughly includes a speech input part, a speech recognizer and an application program part. The speech input part converts voice to speech signals via a speech input apparatus such as a microphone. Alternatively, the speech input part may read data from a file in which speech signals are recorded. The speech recognizer recognizes a word represented by input speech signals by template-matching with registered speech signal patterns, and notifies the application program of the recognized word. The application program performs the subsequent processes by utilizing the recognized word notified by the speech recognizer.
The features of the conventional speech recognition application are as follows: First, the application program is described as processing programs, each of which has a one-to-one correspondence to a word for speech recognition. More specifically, the speech recognizer recognizes a word by matching the word with a registered word and notifies the application program of the matched result. Therefore, in the application, it is necessary to classify the subsequent processes into processes necessary for each word recognition previously and to describe the processes individually.
Secondly, the application depends on a language of the registered words for recognition. More specifically, since words other than the words for recognition registered in the speech recognizer cannot be recognized, the application program is described on the basis of the language of registered words and thus depends on the language.
With the advancement and the complicity of the applications for development, the diversification of changes in the market needs and the internationalization of products at the present, the development of a variety of applications is required to meet a various demands such as reduction in development workload, shortening in development time and applicability in a plurality of languages. In view of these demands, the above-described conventional speech recognition application poses the following problems.
In light of the first feature of the conventional speech recognition application that processing of an application program is described corresponding to each word for speech recognition, the conventional speech recognition application poses the problems of increase of development workload and difficulty in tuning such as change or addition of words for recognition. More specifically, since it is necessary to classify previously process contents into processes necessary for each word for recognition and to describe the processes individually, the change or addition of a word for recognition affects all related parts of the application program, so that the description is required to be changed accordingly.
In light of the second feature of the conventional speech recognition application that the application depends on the language, the conventional speech recognition application poses the problems of increase of development workload and difficulty in dealing with a plurality of languages. More specifically, since the application contains language-dependent parts, a change in word expression in accordance with the language or dialect used by a user of the system affects all the language-dependent parts, so that localization work is needed to change the description.
In the conventional speech recognition application, it is possible to update the words for recognition or register additional words by updating or adding to a table for words for recognition. However, the update or the additional registration in the table for words for recognition affects all related parts in the application program. Furthermore, in order to deal with another language, when the table for words for recognition is replaced by a new table for that language, it is necessary to replace not only the table, but also the application program itself by a specially developed application program by localizing so as to deal with the language of the new table for words for recognition.